Glass Ball Productions
Glass Ball Animation, doing business as Glass Ball Productions, LLC., is an American production company and animation studio of the animator Geo G., owned by Geo LTD., now a subsidiary of NBCUniversal. It was established in 1988 and is based in Burbank, California. Glass Ball is best known for the animated series Geo TV, Cland Ann, Life of a Teenage Rockstar, Max & Duke, ''Moon Theatre'', Planetokio, and Ice Age: The Series and the films My Brother's Friend, The Autism Problem, Geo Movie, Cland Ann: The Movie, Niz Chicoloco, BJ and Wally, Sherman's Lagoon, The Planetokio Movie, and MYCUN. The company also owns the subsidiaries Wonderful Neon Productions and NicThic Productions. Despite being a subsidiary of Geo LTD., Glass Ball also produces films and television series for other companies to distribute, notably Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox. History Glass Ball Productions was founded by Geo G. in 1982 as Geo G. Productions, and originally, was a division of Hanna-Barbera, before it was renamed Glass Ball in 1988, and separated from the studio. In 1985, Geo G. Productions entered into a distribution agreement with Universal Studios to produce animated films. In early 1988, Geo G. Productions was renamed as Glass Ball Productions. The company's first feature film was My Brother's Friend, which was the first project produced for Universal and was released on July 29, 1988 to critical success, though it did poorly at the box office. Their second film, The Ugieugies, was released on August 10, 1990. After The Ugieugies, Glass Ball took a break in film-making for the last ten years. In 1993, Glass Ball was acquired by Geo LTD. as an animated unit for Geo LTD. Animation. However, no films were made by Glass Ball that were distributed by Geo LTD. for years, which was when Glass Ball was probably busy producing films and television series for other companies. The same year, Glass Ball produced its sketch television series Geo G's Sketch-O-Rama, in which Glass Ball produced the show for 20th Century Fox Television. In 2000, after ten years of absence in films, Glass Ball produced Geo Movie, which was based on the Fox (later ABC) animated sitcom Geo TV. It was released by 20th Century Fox on March 10, 2000, received positive reviews and was a commercial success. After the release of the film, it was announced it would be followed by two sequels. Glass Ball Interactive was a computer and video game developer founded in 1995 as a Glass Ball subsidiary that was best known for developing Niz Chicoloco for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. In 2000, the company, however, went defunct for financial reasons. On November 7, 2000, DreamWorks (later DreamWorks Animation) and Glass Ball Productions announced that they had entered an agreement that would enable Glass Ball to produce four films in per year, with DreamWorks handling the production of the films. These films in partnership with DreamWorks include a film adaptation of Niz Chicoloco, BJ and Wally, Little Critter, and an original animated film Zila. Next year followed The Autism Problem, Glass Ball's first computer-animated feature and first film to be distributed by Universal Pictures since The Ugieugies. Glass Ball's first sequel, Geo Movie 2, was released into theaters on September 26, 2003. The production of the third film Geo Movie 3 began six months before the release of Geo Movie 2. Although, 20th Century Fox saw the disappointing box office sales, as well as the DVD and VHS sales of both movies being better than that of the box office, Fox felt the film (as well as future sequels) performed much better on DVD and VHS, thus, making a direct-to-video sequel. Geo Movie 3 was released on home video on May 13, 2004. On December 3, 2004, Niz Chicoloco, based on the video game series of the same name by DreamWorks Interactive, was released in theaters and was the first Glass Ball film in partnership with DreamWorks. Although Niz Chicoloco received positive reviews from film critics and fans, the film was a box office failure, costing $80 million to create while earning $32 million in the United States and Canada and just shy of $120 million worldwide. Due to the film's disappointing box office performance, DreamWorks cancelled any plans for a sequel, but DreamWorks and Glass Ball still continued their partnership. The second DreamWorks Animation and Glass Ball Productions co-production and the first Glass Ball film to be animated in CGI since The Autism Problem was BJ and Wally, which was based on the daily comic strip of the same name by Geo G. Released on August 17, 2007 by Paramount Pictures (which was the first Glass Ball film to be distributed by said company), BJ and Wally received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office success, grossing $356 million domestically and $425.9 million worldwide based on a $140 million budget. In August 2006, it was reported that DreamWorks and Glass Ball would not renew their partnership, set to expire in July 2007, with BJ and Wally being released in September as the final Glass Ball film co-produced by DreamWorks Animation in their partnership. With the end of the partnership, the rights of Little Critter and Zila reverted to Glass Ball as stand-alone productions and transferred to Warner Bros. Pictures. In February 2009, Glass Ball acquired a Russian animation studio Yoctonime and re-branded it as Glass Ball Productions Moscow. On December 28, 2012, Glass Ball was transferred under Geo LTD. Animation. In 2014, it was announced that Glass Ball revealed the new logo, opened offices to Seoul (South Korea), Tokyo (Japan), London (United Kingdom) and Paris (France). The visual effects department was acquired by Libum Labs in 2014 and is currently known as DevilFish Creative FX, employing the former employees of Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain. On July 21, 2015, NBCUniversal announced it would be acquiring Glass Ball's parent company Geo LTD. for $7.4 billion. On December 9, 2015, the acquisition was completed. In November 2016, Clearwater Animation acquired most of Glass Ball's international operations, excluding the Moscow studio. Logo Coming soon! Filmography Theatrical feature films Released films Upcoming films Direct-to-video feature films Short films Coming soon! Television series Online series Coming soon! Units Worldwide *'Glass Ball Productions Moscow' (Стакан Мяч производств Москва), founded in September 2015, located in Moscow, Russia. Other production studios *'Glass Ball Online' *'Glass Ball Media' Gallery Glass_Ball_2017.png|The Glass Ball Productions logo since 2017, to be fully animated and seen in Imaginary Animals. Glassball1.png|The Glass Ball Productions logo from 2014 to 2017. Glass Ball Productions logo.png|The Glass Ball Productions logo from 1988 to 2014, still in use on some shows and films. Trivia Coming soon! Category:Companies Category:Glass Ball Productions Category:Geo LTD. Category:Universal Studios Category:NBCUniversal